Amazing Heroes (1986)

This issue: An interview with BRUCE JONES, a heroine history of the
BLACK CANARY, and a special look at comics censorship in the '50s!

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AMAZING HEROES
(Subscription Dopartmant)

TRUE LOVE.
HAPPINESS.
8c BIG BUCKS

A Farewell Editorial by Art Cover

although there have been times when my wife and
I have struggled mightily over reams of observa¬
tions about Batman, Deadman, etc., all rife with
confused syntax of historical proportions. Like the
syntax of that sentence you just read. It ain't easy
thinking straight, particularly about comic books.

Beginning in the early '70s, around the time that
I embark^—theoretically—on a professional
writing career, I rediscovered comic books and,
thanks to the efforts of a few friends, purchased
a few old collections consisting of back issues
published throughout the '60s. I not only redis-

thought

Hic Inc h<!imiK'n! c J Oi coma [o life in
1 ir^’ C /i'cu)l!i I(oniiiig in April. ^

Amazing Heroes

THE ULTIMATE VISUAL EXPERIENCE!

FULL COLOR COMICS WITH COMPUTER GRAPHICS!

COMING THIS SUMMER!

“ o m I c s

Coming of

THE

COMET

MAN

Preview by Peter Quinones

;y to get up clos(

Comet Man, scheduled to premiere
the same time Halley's is brightest in
sky, sometime in April.

The creators of this new book are

collectors. Billy Mumy might be

Space. He has written albums
music with various bands, and I

with Mumy on television mate
and has directed for TV. Teamed

Kelley Jones, they have sought

flavor of their favorite era in com
the wartime Golden Age.

How the Whole
Thing Began

"It began with us, along with another
friend, writing a Twilight Zone

called 'The Coming of the Comet
Man" and it had nothing to do with
the comic bok character. It was an
episode dealing with counterfeiting
Golden Age books. And rtie book we
picked was The Comet Man."

Then both Mumy and Miguel Fer¬
rer attended the San Diego con.
Mumy is a frequent speaker at comic

fcor^M^my mcol^ts^T^^ a^skS

back from the con we decided it had
to be the Comet Man. And there has
never really a Comet Man character.

VO got together and started
deas around. The Twilight
)t had been their first col-

one that'll push me. Besides,, oi
points of reference are very simila

plus we've both worked in the sam

f sent out the proposal and

Amazing Heroes #9

silent

The Invasion Begins in April.
Coming from RENEGADE PRESS.

nnvtbi II. lYini
X REFUfB' TO BEUBve
, ANCTHEK ONE
OF ifOlktt. PBLMHONi'.'.

/ing 'This is awful stuff.

id." Those issues, that are
th hundreds or thousands

nd saying, "Ugh, it's just

blah. That was the beauty of work¬
ing on the project—l got very little

if people had cared a lot there would
have been a lot more interference.

Even at that, it was a departure
from working at V\^rren, where 98%

“Exposition through dialogue
and even captions was always a
nagging grief of mine at
Marvel.”

at'the tae''l'remem'bCT

interference at Marwl than 1 was

through dialogue and even captions

|h=H,ll,h. fr.,m.hp timpi

E^line,'' th^^were' ?

donna. 1 was used to being able to
just do anything 1 wanted and have
it accepted; 1 had to learn the Marvel

was always a nagging grief of mine
at Marvel. 1 thought they did much
too much of that. But 1 know why

started working there,^and ^ went
were my best stories, and then tossed

1 with them and that influ- "

and inspires you to go on.

mold. And I'm not knocking it—1
think that's as it should be. If you're
going to work for a company that is
obviously extremely successful, you

they did it: because they sold their
product to younger readers, who
needed that constant re-establishing.
Also, 1 wanted to tell the story

the rest of them. 1 wish I'd pulled

good ideas there 1 could have used
for TV and the movies, but you never

in the Merry Marvel Mar-

should learn to do what they think

through pictures and through a dif-
ferent^^nd of dialogue and that was

The problem with answering that

e inspired.

' do 'tfiings occasionally

AH: You got that out of your system

being the best story that you wrote

Amazing Heroes

you read the Cochran coNections,
there is a redundancy to it that to
some degree gets on your nerses. But
I think the extent to which it gets on
your nerves is more than offset by the
cohesive look—you always knew
what to expect from an EC, and
while tfiere is a bad side to that, there
is a very good side to it.

AH: And you still had distina
work—as editors, you had Feldstein,
but also Kurtzman, Craig... They

JONES: Now that was the part of EC
I would have liked to have been able
to implement. That I would have
gladly copied, because that was not
copying a style, that was copying an

ness, their ideas are so disparate from
yours and no one cares. It produces
some great work, but there is such
a feeling of individuality in the field

effect, ^is scattershot look—it's diver¬
sification overkill. And 1 think it hurts
the industry terribly. It makes it look
sloppy, it makes it look like it has no
editorial feel at all. I think there are
some good, intelligent editors in the
business today, but they don't get a
real chance to^pjy their craft because

The artists are—oh, God, they're just
maddening! They're unbelievably
frustrating. They're all paranoid,

and I think I can speak with justifica-

“I would suggest the most
tastefully polite bedroom scene
and invariably I would get stuff
back that was unprintable!”

32

March i, i986

really matterbLaise ^he en
is, the job is late, the book is 1

I the only reasons I reluctantly decid¬
ed to go ahead with these four books
that Eclipse is publishing. It's une-

crude vigor that I simply can't do an
more. I don't know how to think thi
way, because I'm not 23 any mor
and I don't think like a young mar

id while it's grand to find your
ick to that same old adage, every

the time. My point is that I think that
they do. Mitigating factors are what
most of the time screw things up. No
one in Hollywood makes bad films

said that you can put the best direc¬
tor, the best actors, the best choreo¬
graphers, the best editors, the best

right. One of the things that always
bothered me about Marvel—and I
don't mean to be picking on Marvel,
Mar\ei is obviously a big success that
doesn't need Bruce jones, so there's
no point picking on them—but it

pictures, but I don't want to do that;

ably know who they are anyway. But
it's just a very very difficult field and
that's my chief beef with critics. They

thing new. They're always looking for
a new bandwagon to get on. That
never interested me. The exciting
things to me are the things that fail
a little bit, because when something

little bit, and that's what makes it ex¬
citing. That's what makes art exciting,
that's what makes Picasso exciting,
and John Updike exciting, and any
of the people that I think stand the

“mulate your peers. And while it
kes you slick and makes you sale-

Hemingways in the world found it so
hard that they elected another way
out. Tm not saying that's the primary

I February 8, 1986, shortly a
interview was conducted. O

Amazing Heroes i

ISBACKINANALLrNEWSEPIE^-^

MINP-MNPING MONTHLY APVENTURES
GUARANTEED TO DRIVE YOU BUGGY!

SENSATIONAL STORIES E>y LEN WEiN/

ST- OUIRAGEOUS ART 5T RARIS CUUlNSiBRUCE lATTERSON/

^JUSTtCB/j
k IJU EAG ^

COMICS
IN REVIEW

R.A.

JONES

on

• BATMAN AND
AND THE OUT¬
SIDERS #32

• SHATTER #3

• BLUE BEETLE
#1

• ELEMENTALS
SPECIAL #1

• TALES OF THE
SUN-RUNNERS
#1

• THE SHADOW
#1

.. .and some words

on Jack Kirby’s art

March i,

53

Amazing Heroes *90

CHANGE

YOUR

PARTNERS

March 1,

He’s Back!

COMICS IN REVIEW

lACK KIRBY PETITION

1 . the undersigned, believe that Marvel Comics should place no
conditions upon the immediate return of Jack Kirby's original art.
I regret Marvel's shameful treatment of and ingratitude toward its
most inspired, imaginative, and productive founding father, with¬
out whom there might not be a Marvel Comics today. Furthermore,
I wish to express my appreciation and love for Jack Kirby, who,
by his unparalleled talent and his life-long devotion to comic book
art, enriched the lives of comics readers everywhere.

Com lew

*l«»uriial

AMAZING READERS

wiped out, thereby cementing DC's

stories between 1935 and 1985 are
conducive to the new DC universe
and whether they "happen" or not
doesn't change the fact that they were
published and were, for the most

And while Marv Wolfman had no
heartfelt love for the character of
Supergiri, I'm sure every person

He was injured in a manner perfect-
iy^^haracter, helping those who

mockery of his career and if Jeff did

nal's protege in Infinity Inc. Her
name was to be "La Gata" (The Cat)
and obviously she was held back and
changed due to the fact that Wildcat
was to be injured during the Crisis.

Finally, I'd like to address your
statement that DC Comics canes little
for their longtime readers. As one, 1

embarrassment and the genera/ level

Despite the fact that your letter saw

half a handful of real comic fens were
displeased with the 12-issue odyssey.

BILL D. MIDDLETON

Problems with Marvel

SPECIAL EDITION

FRANK MILLER'S

DARK KNIGHT

Issue #31 of David Anthony Kraft's COMICS INTERVIEW features
a DARK KNIGHT cover by Miller and an exclusive and very revealing

AMAZING READERS

only nice pieces of fantasy, but they
also made me feel good about myself
as a human being and gave a young
boy fictional role models that might
some day help him get his own life

others in this kind of reading), lllyana

coming matunty. She's changing,
she's becoming an adult, and that's

ite^, kmous for her explorations of
• literally kid stuff compared to this

Batwo«a>j,

the flames. And^as for Mike Carlin's

Factor won't be "breaking the law at
any time in the future," he might con¬
sider the illegality fraud and
deceptive advertising, not to mention
what Cyclops and company did in

always had going for it is a
credibility. If we keep pulling

of this title have made clear: though

"just a force from the cosmos." Bring-
ingjean back not only hurt Marvel's
credibility, it insulted all the readers

I wouldn't read comics at all (let alone
I Amazing Heroes). And the fact that
I Jeff, or 1, can be distraught over the

pared to give the post-Cr/s/s era a
chance, like Jeff I'm unhappy that DC
chose to "simplify" something that
was always interesting in its very
complexity, and to celebrate 50 years
of creativity by killing (or even "kill¬
ing") some of their best creations-
Supergirl, Barry Allen's Flash, the

March i,

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C 1986 FIRST COMICS. INC atxJ STAR+REACH PRODUCTIONS ^